A/HRC/11/37 children with disabilities. Such services, preferably of an integrated and non-intrusive nature, should be directly accessible at community level and should actively involve the participation of families as partners, combining their resources with those of the community and the carer; (c) Youth policies aiming at empowering youth to face positively the challenges of everyday life, including when they decide to leave the parental home, and preparing future parents to make informed decisions regarding their sexual and reproductive health and to fulfil their responsibilities in this respect. 34. Various complementary methods and techniques should be used for family support, varying throughout the process of support, such as home visits, group meetings with other families, case conferences and securing commitments by the family concerned. They should be directed towards both facilitating intrafamilial relationships and promoting the family’s integration within its community. 35. Special attention should be paid, in accordance with local laws, to the provision and promotion of support and care services for single and adolescent parents and their children, whether or not born out of wedlock. States should ensure that adolescent parents retain all rights inherent to their status both as parents and as children, including access to all appropriate services for their own development, allowances to which parents are entitled, and their inheritance rights. Measures should be adopted to ensure the protection of pregnant adolescents and to guarantee that they do not interrupt their studies. Efforts should also be made to reduce stigma attached to single and adolescent parenthood. 36. Support and services should be available to siblings who have lost their parents or caregivers and choose to remain together in their household, to the extent that the eldest sibling is both willing and deemed capable of acting as the household head. States should ensure, including through the appointment of a legal guardian, a recognized responsible adult or, where appropriate, a public body legally mandated to act as guardian, as stipulated in paragraph 18 above, that such households benefit from mandatory protection from all forms of exploitation and abuse, and supervision and support on the part of the local community and its competent services, such as social workers, with particular concern for the children’s health, housing, education and inheritance rights. Special attention should be given to ensuring the head of such a household retains all rights inherent to his/her child status, including access to education and leisure, in addition to his/her rights as a household head. 37. States should ensure opportunities for day care, including all-day schooling, and respite care which would enable parents better to cope with their overall responsibilities towards the family, including additional responsibilities inherent in caring for children with special needs. Preventing family separation 38. Proper criteria based on sound professional principles should be developed and consistently applied for assessing the child’s and family’s situation, including the family’s actual and potential capacity to care for the child, in cases where the competent authority or agency has reasonable grounds to believe that the well-being of the child is at risk. 39. Decisions regarding removal or reintegration should be based on this assessment and made by suitably qualified and trained professionals, on behalf of or authorized by a competent authority, in full consultation with all concerned and bearing in mind the need to plan for the child’s future. 40. States are encouraged to adopt measures for the integral protection and guarantee of rights during pregnancy, birth and the breastfeeding period, in order to ensure conditions of 30 GE.09-16766